According to the Harrah's 2003 Survey and the American Gaming Association's most recent survey, more than a quarter of Americans age 21 and older gambled at a casino in 2002 (26% or 51.2 million adults). Gamblers took about 300 million trips to casinos and, on average, visited a casino about once every two months. The Harrah's 2003 Survey also finds that casino gambling appeals most to Americans ages 51 to 65 with the percentage of participation being the following:
Ages 21-35 years old25%36-5025%51-6530%66 years old and above27%
Legalized gambling is a $54 billion industry overall. Slot machines and electronic gaming devices are the most popular casino games among Americans with 74% stating this preference for their gambling entertainment. Women, by an overwhelming margin (81% to 67%) prefer to play slot machines and electronic gaming devices compared to men. In addition, the income of casino players is more than 20% higher ($50,716 versus $42,228) than the income of the average American.
Accordingly, casinos in general and slot machines in particular provide an attractive opportunity as an advertising medium to these demographics. U.S. Pat. No. 6,523,824, to Colapinto, for instance, describes a method to use slot machines for advertising wherein a casino sells advertising space on slot machines to businesses. In particular, Colapinto describes that advertising icons will be placed appropriately on the reels of the slot machine, after which the newly programmed machines can be operated. According to Colapinto, such an arrangement may be encompassed in an agreement as follows: “The agreement which must be reached will include a price, if any, to be paid by a business to have icons of the business and its products or services placed on the slot machine reels, the percentage of payout, and other details as will be known to those skilled in the art.” Colapinto also indicates such advertising may be placed without an agreement between two organizations: “A supermarket, for example, might operate our system utilizing some, or all, of its products as the basis for pay out coupons or tokens.”
U.S. Pat. No. 5,941,772 to Paige describes another method and apparatus to exploit the activity of slot machine wagering for commercial advertising purposes and/or for dispensing of advertising, commercial or promotional merchandise. Paige describes a slot machine in which the jackpot and/or pay off symbols are replaced with an advertiser's product identity or logo. While the casino payoffs remain unchanged, the players look for a match of product logos instead of the familiar “7-7-7” or bells or cherries. In this manner, the very act of winning is linked to the product being advertised. Additional incentives for the player, as well as the casino, are related to this advertising method. The described method also utilizes a system for tying use of the invention with accumulation of points redeemable for merchandise.
In addition, it is also known that casino game manufacturers will license the right to use a well-known or famous entertainment product, character, game, movie or television show as the basis for a slot machine game design. In these instances, casino game manufacturers seek to use the popularity of these well-known game designs to draw players to the casino games in which they are used. Accordingly game manufacturers pay the holder of the rights to these products or entertainment media for the right to use them.